


All Alone

by NORIAKICATKYOIN



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Nebula & Tony Stark Friendship, Nebula (Marvel) is a Good Bro, POV Nebula (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Angst, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NORIAKICATKYOIN/pseuds/NORIAKICATKYOIN
Summary: The Benatar drifts through space, alone and forgotten.Battle damaged, and low on supplies, the ship's controls stop working.Nebula tries to get them under control, cursing at what was once her sister's home.Tony tries to sleep away the memory of what he's lost.





	All Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Heyy!! So I wrote this (the concept and outline anyway) before Endgame came out lol. I've spent a lot of time on it, but couldn't get it Beta-read. I might get it edited later, but oh well. I feel like I've put enough work into this for now that it's ready to be posted. I hope you enjoy! If you wanna follow me I'll leave my social media at the end.

“Fucking hell!”

Tony ignored Nebula, who was yelling at the damaged ship. He grunted as his shoulder hit the walls of the Benatar . Ever since they’d taken off, the controls were either not responding, or going offline. For the past few hours they’d been having a mind of their own. Jerking the ship from side to side and knocking them to their knees.

Tony pushed himself up and kept walking. He turned down the hall, and kept his hands out, ready to catch himself if he fell again. Getting to the bedroom was the safest thing to do in this battle-damaged ship.  And it wouldn’t hurt to sleep for a few… Days.  He rounded the corner.

Then the lights went out.

All he could do was stumble around, wait for it to pass. The only light he could see came from stars light years away, shining through a window. It was hard to avoid looking out there. At the passing asteroids, some no bigger than his fist. Small glimmers of light in the distance, too far away to discern their shape. And the darkness of the void. Space. His eyes wouldn’t pull away, as much as he wanted to. He could feel his chest tightening up. He ignored it, shoving it down with the rest of his anxieties.

Not now.  He had more important things to worry about. He turned away from the window. He took in a sharp breath, and kept walking. Groping the wall, he passed a doorway.  One more doorway to the bedroom .

The ship lurched again, and, caught off-guard, Tony stumbled. He hissed in pain as his knees scraped against the metal of the ship, pieces of floor dug into the skin of his legs.

He groaned, and was halfway standing, when Nebula yelled out.

“Gravity controls are malfunctioning. We’re about to have a few moments of zero-gravity.” Tony’s stomach jumped at the thought.  Shove it down.  He held onto the doorframe, and waited.

A few seconds later, the all-too familiar feeling of no gravity flooded the ship. Tony felt his chest tightening up again, and without warning, his mind slipped. No control, no remorse. All he could do was sit there, frozen as his limbs floated on their own accord. His hands were shaking, but his head felt heavy. Too numb to notice. Breaths were coming quicker. Air rushing in and out, the rate of his pulse was rising higher and higher. His mouth gaped open. No air would push past the lump in his now dry throat, all he could do was swallow, and gasp.

Then he dropped back to the ground.

The lights flickered back on as he collided with the floor. Shivering, he got up, and walked, faster than before. Until he could fall down on one of the beds. Who knew whose bed it was. None of the guardians were there to say.

He turned and curled into himself, nauseas as the memory of them dying resurfaced. Flesh and bone stripped away until there was nothing but dust.

He shut his eyes, and willed his mind to shut down as well.  Shove it down. Don’t think about it.

\---

The gravity.

He was floating again. He couldn’t focus on anything. His head felt heavy, and his vision blurred until all he saw was a melting pot of color. All he could hear were words that burned his ears.

He could hear his thoughts, spoken aloud in distorted voices around him. Rushed, panicked, half-sentences that came in and out.

“They’re all gone, gone. They’ve all left me. Left me like he said they would. Said I’d always be alone. It was true. It’s all true.

Alone out here. They wouldn’t listen. Stuck out here in the void. All for nothing.

Going to die here. I’ve failed them. Didn’t try hard enough, could have done something, could’ve stopped this before it started...”

Tony’s vision focused, and it was too much. He let out a whimper as he tried to adjust to the overstimulation. He looked around the wasteland he was standing in, and his stomach dropped. He was back there. Back in the nightmare Wanda had given him.  When she was still alive.

Below him, he saw a graveyard. Rows upon rows of corpses, eyes open, terror on their faces. He couldn’t tell if he was imagining the dust in his throat.

Peter, Vision, Wanda, Strange, all faces he recognized, and even more faces he couldn’t place. All bloody, or hurt. Fear ripped through his chest. Breaths fast. Pulse high. None of them reacted. They opened their mouths instead. Lulling out words that’d haunted his night terrors for years in a dead tone.

“You could have saved us.”

\---

Nebula’s footsteps were quiet as she walked through the Benatar. A gasping sound coming from the back of the ship was plenty cause for alarm. They were already low on air, and an air leak was the last thing they needed.

“All alone, all f-fucking alone-”

Nebula stopped in her tracks. She could hear it now. The gasping sound was exactly that, gasping. She could hear Tony, breathing hard, muttering to himself. She picked up her pace, and fast-walked to the bedroom. She stopped in the doorway, and saw Tony, sprawled out on the floor like he’d fallen over.

His words were breathy, spoken alongside his hyperventilating.

“All alone, all alone. They all died  and now I’m going to die.  F-fucked up, we fucked up, we could’ve- could’ve av-v-voided th-this.”

Nebula stood there for a moment. She was in Tony’s line of vision but he either didn’t register she was there, or didn’t care. She took a slow step towards him, trying to think of what to do. She leaned down on the balls of her feet, and placed a hesitant hand on Tony’s arm. He flinched, and yanked his arm away.

“What the- Are- are you…” Nebula trailed off. What was she supposed to do? To say? The most she’d said to him were one-word answer given to him when he tried chatting her up. But nothing like this had happened.

She watched his face as his eyes widened at her words. She noticed tears running down his face in waves, soaking the neckline of his shirt. His hands were trembling, and she could hear the quiet chatter of his teeth as he started mumbling again.

“Can’t.. Can’t breathe, can’t s-see it’s all dark. ‘m all alone. They left me alone.” Tony’s whole body was shivering. Nebula could hear his breathing quicken, and panic jolted through her.

“Damnit.” She put her hand on his arm again, gentle. This time she held eye contact with him, as she tried not to startle him again. “Hey, hey uh, look at me. Tell me what’s wrong? Can- can you do that?” She knew her voice still sounded monotone. It was second nature. To avoid sounding weak, vulnerable.

Tony stared at her for a moment with his puffy red eyes. He was moving his mouth, but he wasn’t forming words. The only sounds he was making were sobs. Nebula could feel her hands start to shake.  Calm down, not now.  “Can you talk to me, or- or try and listen to my voice?” Tony’s eyes were still staring, blank and unresponsive. But finally, words left his dry lips.

“I-I don’t. I c-can’t do it. I can’t breathe out here it’s- it’s all black…” Tony’s eyes shifted and turned to his right, staring into a window of the bedroom. Nebula followed where they were staring, and realized what he meant.

She still didn’t know why he got set off so bad by a glimpse of the outside.  But he can’t stay here.

First, she had to bring him away from there. Keep him from getting freaked out by the windows again, and take him somewhere that wasn’t  the floor .

“Stark, Stark look at me.” Tony tilted his head down from the window and resumed his dead stare. She could feel his arm relax a bit, though his body still looked quite tense.  Hearing me talk might ground him a bit.

“Mhm.” She felt a bit of relief, hearing him hum an answer. Nebula moved her hand from his arm to his palm, and grasped it. She grabbed his other hand as well, and pulled them close to her as she sat down with him on the floor.

“Feel my hands, yours are in mine, try to breathe.” She could feel herself getting frustrated.  Calm down, tone it down. He can’t help it.  “We have air, you’re not out there, you’re here, with me, Nebula, on the ship. You’re having a-” Nebula caught herself talking, before she realized what was going on. She was falling into the motions, telling Tony what she’d tell herself when the same thing happened to her. The same panic and fear she felt when she thought about- about Thanos .

Her expression faltered a bit, along with her speech. Stoic and frustrated, to vulnerable. She rubbed her thumbs over Tony’s still-shivering hands as she finished her sentence.

“You’re having a panic attack?” Tony seemed to respond to her touch. He looked at her, and his eyes seemed a bit more aware as he responded.

“Mmmm.” A small groan was all he could manage. Nebula could feel Tony moving his fingers in her palms. She didn’t smile, but her eyes crinkled as his fingers formed a weak grip around her hands.

“I- I can’t get you out of here. I’m going to help you get back on the bed though.” He didn’t seem to be listening, but she couldn’t force him to. If it came down to it, she’d have to wrap a blanket around him and help him fall asleep.

He continued staring at her, but she noticed his head nod a little, giving her the okay to reach around him. Her hands were slow as she found her grip around his waist and chest. He flinched at her arms getting a bit too close to the part of his chest that looked… Dented. She paused, then lowered her arms, and hoisted him up. She brought him to his knees, and then after a second pull, onto shaky legs.

Nebula skimmed over his face, making sure he wasn’t panicking more than before, and walked with him. The room wasn’t very large, but he’d been almost as far as possible from the beds. It was awkward, trying to help him balance, and maneuver away from the walls. But keeping contact, and coaxing him along seemed to be keeping him grounded.

Nebula sighed with relief as she dropped Tony onto a cot. Whose it was, she wasn’t sure. Nebula’s neutral expression soured at the thought.  Which one of these was Gamora’s?

Tony let out a sigh, broken up by small gasps. Nebula turned her attention back to him, and looked down at his shaking hands. An idea struck her, and she motioned towards his hands.

“Rub your hands together.” His eyes moved down to his hands. He lifted them closer to his chest, and held them there. Nebula leaned forward, and held them, moving them against each other for him. Tony watched his hands in silence, and started to rub them on his own. Nebula let go, and sat back.

“Feel your hands rubbing together. Focus on it. You were having a nightmare, you got pulled back to whatever was wrong. You’re safe-” She pursed her lips, and mumbled the rest of her sentence. “… I guess. You’re safe in the ship with me, Nebula.” Tony closed his eyes, and let out a large breath. He brought his knees up a bit. Pulling them out of their sprawled position.

“I’m s-sorry.” He sobbed out. He stopped rubbing his hands and wiped at his face. Tears and snot spread over his cheeks and hands. “Im s-so sorry. D-didn’t mean to b-be like this. N-not here.” Nebula hesitated,  Is this a weird thing to do?  And patted an awkward hand on his knee.

“It’s okay it... It happens to the best of us.”  And me.  Tony wasn’t shaking or crying as much. She heard him cough, and looked up at him before she realized his eyes were wider than before.

“Are you okay?” She asked. Tony shook his head a little, and made a strained gasping sound in his throat.

“C-can’t breathe, gonna… ch-choke.” Nebula took in a sharp breath and her fingers curled, digging into Tony’s knee. She thought back to breathing exercises Gamora had taught her. Back when they’d been in a situation all too familiar to this one.

“Alright, uh, try to breathe.”  No shit. “Breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four, and exhale for four.” Tony shut his eyes as he tried to focus on what she was saying. His breaths sounded weak and strained. Nebula watched him. She put her hands on his shoulders, rubbing her thumbs into them. “Count the seconds in your head while you breathe. It’ll help, give you something to focus on.” She watched Tony’s face. Dark circles around his eyes were more visible after they closed. Days old bruises were still lingering on his jaw, and faint scars from cuts settled into his dry, weary skin.

She knew the pain he felt, pain from the same monster who’d hurt him back on Titan. Nebula shut her eyes. She knew how he felt, and she knew what she wanted, no,  needed whenever she felt the way he did, as much as she’d never admit it. Whether from fear, or pride, she’d never say what she needed in the moment. But she knew Tony needed her.

Already regretting it, Nebula pulled Tony close to her, arms wrapping around him in a stiff hug.

Tony, He couldn’t comprehend it. Head swirling, unable to block out intrusive thoughts, and fear. Fear from long gone events that he would have forgotten if his brain would let him. He knew, in a sense, what he was feeling. It filled an ache he had, a longing for physical touch again. Peter was gone, Pepper was far away, he hadn’t been ready, ready to feel that ache dissolve so soon.

He tried, as much as he could, and allowed himself to relax into the hug. He could feel the awkwardness of Nebula’s arms, stiff and unsure. In his half-awake state made a note to thank her later.

\---

**Author's Note:**

> As a sidenote, I'm sorry for not posting in forever. I've been hella depressed for a long time but I'm doing much better lately :). I'll probably work on another Marvel fic in the next few months, but right now I'm writing a fic for Apex Legends that's turning out to be kinda long (over 12 pages). Anyway, thanks for reading!! 
> 
> Tumblr: RavagingValiance


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